UC-NBLF 


B    3    TBI    5DM 


magination 

and 

Children's 

Reading 

By 
Grace  Hazard  Conkling 


'If  we  once  realize  how  children  see  things  we  can  never 
patronize  them  again."  G.  H.  C. 


The   Hampshire   Bookshop,   Inc. 

Northampton,    Mass. 


I921 


^ 


IMAGINATION    AND    CHILDREN'S 
READING 

A  Talk  Given  at  the  Hampshire  Bookshop 
Nov.  i6,  ig2o 

What  is  it  people  lose  when  they  grow  up?  Simplicity- 
and  insight.  They  get  wise  with  so  many  little  details 
called  facts  that  they  lose  the  broad  view.  It's  like 
getting  into  a  fog.  If  we  once  realize  how  children 
see  things,  we  can  never  patronize  them  again.  They 
see  colors  invisible  to  us,  contours  we  have  forgotten. 
Tdon't-m^an  to-be  sentimental  about-cJiildren,  L  w-ant 
tO-Jje-j-ust.  -B»t  I  do  believe  that  beauty  is  often 
real  to  them  when  we  cannot  see  it,  because  they  have 
not  yet  had  time  to  get  tired  of  anything.  They  are 
not  afraid  to  put  incongruous  things  together.  They 
adore  the  whimsical,  the  grotesque  even.  Being 
ignorant  of  science,  philosophy,  tradition,  they  have 
an  unspoiled  directness  cf  observation  and  fearlessness 
of  expression.  They  have  sympathies  and  intuitions 
which  only  certain  poets,  among  grown-ups,  can 
sh are f" Will iaa^—EIake  and  Rtibert  BupiiSr-for-fixajnpLe. 
Periods  and  dates  do  not  matter  much  to  poets,  nor 
to  children.  They  do  not  care  that  Jason  and  Robin 
Hood  never  knew  each  other  personally.  Siegfried 
might  have  killed  the  dragon  yesterday,  and  flung 
back  his  head  in  happy  astonishment  at  understanding 
3 

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what  the  birds  were  saying  about  him.  The  great 
stories  of  all  time  may  be  presented  with  success  as 
so  much  realism.  That  is  what  they  are  to  the  child- 
mind.  When  the  time  has  come  for  independent 
reading,  when  the  child  can  travel  through  book 
after  book  without  having  to  wait  tor  the  favorable 
mood  or  the  leisure  of  any  adult,  it  is  of  much  im- 
portance that  many  books  and  good  books  be  provided. 

^^feny  because  there  should  be  possibility  of  choice, 
good,  because  first  impressions  persists  _  Even -inore 
important  is  that  preparatory  period  when- the  child 
must  still  be  read  to,  for  he  may  then  be  introduced 
to  the  work  of  great  writers,  not, laboriously,  but  as 
a  pleasure  shared  by  the  older' person.  That  is  an 
opportunity  too  many  people  miss,  the  chance  to 
share  the  story,  to  experience  that  complete  immersion 
"tn  the'subiect-which-Ghildren  can  teach-them.  Books, 
the  first  books  heard  or  read,  are  not  about  life;  they 

'^Jair  life."^ 

-To  say  that  books  are  lite  to  the  imaginative  child 
is  to  admit  a  tremendous  responsibility.  It  is  to 
,  require  of  oneself  the  furnishing  of  a  varied  library. 
Books  rhust  not  all-  be_  serious,  for  children  love  non- 
■sense. "'  They  should  know  Mother  Goose  and  Edward 
Lear  and  Lewis  Carroll;  not  the  experiences  of  Alice 
alone,  but  the  Hunting  of  the  Snark,  lest  they 
miss  acquaintance  with  the  beaver  who  kept  looking 
the  opposite  way.  T^  Rose  audJJi£jiJngJx^^hackeTa.y 
should  net  be  forgotten,-nGr-  much  of  W:  S.  Gilbert. 
Speaking  of  nonsense,  do  you  know  how  delightful 
Walter  de  la  Mare  can  be^  in  this  field  r  Here  is  a 
poem  from  Peacock  Pie  called 
4 


ALAS,  ALACK! 

Ann,  Ann! 

Come !   quick  as  you  can ! 
There's  a  fish  that  talks 

In  the  frying-pan. 
Out  of  the  fat 

As  clear  as  glass 
He  put  up  his  mouth 

And  moaned  'Alas' 
Oh,  most  mournful, 

'Alas,  alack!' 
Then  turned  to  his  sizzling, 

And  sank  him  back. 

If  there  were  time  I  should  tell  you  about  poor  Jim 
lay  who  "got  stuck  fast  in  Yesterday." 
■  '    Books    must    mean    tee    the    kind    of    wonderland 
Alice    could    have    known    without    going    down    the 
rabbit-hole    or    through    the    looking-glass.  They 

must  mean  the  wonderland  of  adventure,  of  romance. 
Ghildren  should  hear  the  Arthurian  stories,  from 
Howara~Pyie^j3erhaps,  or  re-told  by  Janet  Clark  in 
an  English  editi6n,^but  best  of  all  from  Sir  Thomas 
Malory  himself,  in  aTf^ition  published  by  the  Mac- 
millan  Company,  The  Rhmince  of  King  Arthur  and 
his  Knights  of  the  Round  "TaZ/te  abridged  from 
Malory's  15th  century  prose  by  ANW.  Pollard.  This 
book  has  the  advantage  of  exquisite^pictures  by  the 
English  illustrator  Arthur  Rackham.  You  might  be 
surprised  to  know  how  children  enjoy  the  very  diction 
of  Malory,  how  soon  they  learn  the  terms  used  in  the 
stories,  whether  concerning  details  of  armor  or  graphic 
5 


description  of  knights  who  smite  their  enemies  from 
off  the  backs  of  horses.  "Then  Sir  Ector  de  Maris 
smote  Sir  Gareth  so  hard  that  down  he  fell  off  his 
horse.  And  the  noble  King  Arthur  encountered  with 
Sir  Dinadan  and  he  smote  him  quite  from  his  saddle," 

""-.  and  so  on.  "Buffet"  is  a  favorite  word  with  children, 
whether  the  blow  be  given  or  received.  On  the  other 
hand,'Hhey  like  the  ever-delightful  theme  of  disguise'" 
which  is  woven  into  these  stories.  Who  can  under- 
stand like  the  children,  who  love  to  "dress  up",  that 
moment  when  "Sir  Tristram  changed  his  horse  and 
disguised  himself  all  in  red,  horse  and  harness"?  Or 
the  account  of  Sir  Launcelot's  exploits  after  he  had 
dressed  himself  in  Sir  Kay's  armor — "though  it  was 
much  too  small  for  him" — Sir  Launcelot  who  rode 
away  to  see  what  would  happen  white  he  pretended 
to  be  Sir  Kay!  ~ Another  elementln  these  tales  which 
is  very  natural  to  child-readers  or  listeners,  is  the 
element  of  the  incongruous.  They  hear  with  no 
surprise  that  "the  queen  ran  into  the  wood".  '  They 
-— Jexpect  the  unexpected."?""  And  having  such  close  sym- 
Jpathy  with  animals,  they  love  Sir  Launcelot  and  the 
other  knights  because  they  looked  well  to  their  horses 
and  usually  let  them  drink  first  from  the  forest  streams. 
In  the  14th  century  romance  of  Sir  Gawain  and  the 
Green  Knight,  a  tale  I  have  known  children  to  enjoy, 
they  remember  Sir  Gawain 's  horse  by  name,  and  hear 
with  relief  that  Gringalet  "had  been  well  cared  for  and 
tended  in  every  wise".  This  is  an  Arthurian  story  too, 
and  who  wrote  it,  nobody  knows. 

-^^  It  is  quite  simple  and  natural  to  turn  from  romantic 
J  prose  to  poetry^concerning  this  material,  whether  you 
6 


read  the  children  some  Tennyson  or  William  Morris, 
or  let  them  listen  to  later  narrative  and  lyric,  even  to 
de  la  Mare  again,  singing  so  simply 

Laimcelot  loved  Guinevere 

Ages  and  ages  ago. 
Beautiful  aVa  bird  was  she, 
Preening  its  wihgs  in  a  cypress  tree; 
Happy  in  sadnesv5h<and  he, 

They  loved  each  otherV). 

If  you  believe  that  fairy  tales  are  bad  for  children, 
you  may  not  agree  with  me  about  these  romances, 
still  less  about  the  ancient  enchantments  of  Greece — 
-(and_th£_Gre£k  gQds_ac&^so  human  after  _all.  sn  im — 
■ptristve-,  GO  rcassurj-ng!)  or  the  folk  tales  of  many 
other  countries.  There  is  the  fairy  element  in  most 
of  them.  Chi-ki-ren— do  like  ta-tes-^a-t  belong -tQ_the 
infancy  of  races  and  libran^rts  will  tell  you  how 
earnestly  they  read  Irish  awd  Scotch  and  Welsh  fairy 
tales,  stories  about  Bet*mdf  or  Odysseus,  other  stories 
which  come  frorn/Japan  or  from  Russia.  I  think 
there  is  this  satrie  source  of  enjoyment  in  many  of  the 
Bible  storka^which  children  enjoy,  about  David,  or 
about  S.0lomon  amid  splendors  almost  inconceivable. 
Inconceivable  is  a  grown-up  word.  /^A  child  can  con-vX 
ceive  them  with  the  utmost  ease.  There  are-vatious 
stories-abatrt--SoknTrDTr"Trrrd~orre--o-f  them  in  a  book  of 
Jewish  Fairy  Tales  tells  how  a  bumble-bee  stung  King 
Solomon  on  the  nose,  while  he  was  waiting  for  the 
Queen  of  Sheba!  I  want  to  tell  you,  on  the  chance 
that  you  have  not  seen  it,  of  a  collection  of  Fairy  and 
Folk  Tales  made  by  the  Irish  poet,  William  Butler 
7 


Yeats,  who  has  explained  terms  without  making  them 
unattractive,  and  who  includes  poems  with  the  prose 
tales.  This  book  quite  fascinates  children.  Irish 
Fairy  Tales,  a  collection  of  myths  by  another  Irish 
poet,  James  Stephens,  known  as  the  author  of  The 
Rocky  Road  to  Dublin  and  the  Crock  of  Gold,  has  just 
been  published  by  the  Macmillan  Company.  The 
fairy  tales  for  children  so  abound  that  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  speak  of  them  in  detail,  tales  of  all  colors 
and  types.  Have  them  know  Hans  Christian  Andersen, 
oh,  by  all  means!  Even  at  the  expense  of  the  Brothers 
Grimm!  And  surely  it  will  do  them  no  harm  to  listen 
to  a  man  like  Andrew  Lang,  "dear  Andrew  with  the 
brindled  hair"?  His  name  reminds  me  of  something 
quite  separate  from  the  fairy  books,  in  one  sense  at 
least.  Do  you  know  his  translation  with  W.  Leaf 
and  E.  Mvers,  of  the  Iliad?    ■£)cyyou  know  his  OdV!Ji>efv 


iTtch«^  Tkese  translations  are' in 
prose.  ■>43hildren  understand  and  love^T^cm.  And  I 
think  it  is  better  to  read  them,  not  too  much  at  a 
time,  without  especial  comment  unless  questions  are 
asked.  Reading  must  not  be  too  much  like  lessons. 
It  spoils  the  game  somehow  to  stop  for  instruction. 
XJjlconackaisU'  a  child  will  learn  to  form  judgments 
and  to  distinguish  good  from  bad.  I  know  a  man 
who  has  read  much  to  his  children  and  with  genuine 
success,  for  they  know  and  love  the  best  things.  And 
e  makes  it  a  rule  never  to  stop   to  explain   words 

^as-carefatt^r-as— possfble.       Another  rule  is,  never  to 
/  point  a  moral.       Children  think  that  tellers  of  tales 
are  in  sympathy  with  them;  they  are  able  to  deduce 
8 


•M 


Vur 


■--*■"■•"•■'-■'--'-       '•■  "^■' 


the  moral,  but  dislike  to  talk  about  it.      I  think  grown- 
ups feel  the  same  way. 

'y^Books  may  combine  imagination  ani.1  instruction  in 
varying  proportions  attractively,  irresistibly  even.'^ 
Suttr^a  book  is  Selma  Lagerlof's  Adventures  of  Nihy 
delightiiTgiittle  people  equally  with  much  talk  of  wild 
geese,  great  craTms  and  storks,  big  black  crows,  and 
with  descriptions  or^v^t  expanses  of  country,  with 
geography  in  fact.  AhaHier  is  that  extraordinary 
book  by  Henri  Fabre,  iS'of/a/  iSi^ /w  the  Insect  World, 
where  they  find  beetles  and  was^is  and  bees  and  ants 
having  adventures.  Johanna  SpyrKs  story  of  Heidi 
will  help  them  visualize  the  x'Mps  andN^rt»J  Brisker 
by  Mary  M.  Dodge  will  teach  them  Hoirand.  They 
do  not  appear  to  object  to  the  tendency  of  Mr.  Robin- 
son of  the  Swiss  Family  Robinson  to  moralize.'',  They 
smile  indulgently  over  his  preaching.  What  they 
learn  from  this  much-loved  book  I  don't  dare  guess. 
Maybe  they  learn  to  observe  or  to  be  industrious. 
Maybe  they  have  an  illusion  that  they  learn  something. 
I  have  been  jealous  of  the  bland  Robinson  because 
he  could  preach  and  explain  all  he  liked,  for  pages, 

with  no  protest  forthcoming,  while  / !      I  can 

understand  why  they  like  the  other  Robinsqn,  Robinson  / 
Crusoe.  How  they  build  things  with  TmfflH,  When 
in  doubt  what  to  read  to  children,  read  about  somebody 
making  something,  the  Swiss  Family's  House  in  the 
big  Tree  or  Crusoe's  many  inventions  or — Odiiss£us_ 
-buoy  with  hia  boat! 

They   like    Kipling,    the   Just-So    Stories,    the    mar-*/ 
vellous  Jungle  Books;  and  from  Kiui  they  learn  much 
about  Tndiaj^nd   from    Ptii:l:^nf  Pppk' sMill  m^\^\^^\\r)\^t 

9 


the  history  of  old  England.  These  are  more  talked 
of  in  our  day  than  Hawthorne's  Grandjather  s  Chair., 
which  should  not  be  forgotten,  and  is  the  more  likely 
to  be  because  of  the  emphasis  on  Hawthorne's  own 
Tanglewood  Tales  and»  Wonder  Book.  I  think  too 
that  there  is  much  to  learn  from  Mark  Twain  in 
\,  The  Prince  and  the  Pauper  and  in  The  Yankee  in 
King  Arthur's  Court.  Do  you  miss  Tom  Sawyer 
and  Huck  Finn?  But  surely  small  readers  will  find 
them.  Don't  they  know  invariably  about  Tom 
whitewashing  the  fence?  And  the  cave?  And  the 
raft?  I  am  pleading  perhaps  for  the  books  not  as 
well  known,  though  they  are  by  well-known  authors, 
by  the  very  authors  of  the  well-known !  Boys  who 
know  Treasure  Island  almost  by  heart  are  often  un- 
acquainted with  Kidnapped  and  other  tales  by 
R.  L.  S.  All  ot  these  books  are  now  published  in 
illustrated  editions.  I  have  been  asked  whether  I 
should  recommend  books  with  pictures.  Yes,  if  the 
pictures  are  good.  I  have  found  that  children  are 
stimulated  by  them  and  that  in  cases  where  very 
imaginative  children  study  them,  they  have  the 
courage  to  differ  from  the  artist  when  they  consider 
that  he  has  failed  to  give  the  idea.  It  is  very  amusing 
to  hear  these  criticisms  and  another  way  to  get  into  a 
child's  mind. 

That  is  what  we  want  the  books  to  do  and  what   we 

want  to  do  ourselves  surely.     In  Algernon  Blackwood's 

.book   (is  it   for  children   or  grown-ups?)    The  Educa- 

^  tion   of   Uncle   Paul,   where   Uncle   Paul    is   gradually 

learning  to  re-enter  the  child-world  and  be  as  a  little 

child  again  for  the  utter  joy  and  wonder  of  it,  there 


comes  a  great  moment,  the  moment  when  he  is  accepted 
by  the  children,  when  small  Jonah  says  to  him  "We 
never  thought  you  were  as  important  as  you  pre- 
tended, and  your  being  so  big  made  no  difference." 
Uncle  Paul  found  that  for  the  .first  time  in  his  life  he 
could  play  with  others  instead  of  alone  by  himself. 
The  children  had  taught  him.  All  they  expected  of 
him  was  that  he  have  adventures.  And  these  had  to 
be  reported  and  shared.  But  he  never  tried  to  reduce 
experience  to  the  "little  hard  pellet  of  an  exact  fact"; 
not  for  the  children.  For  that,  he  felt,  would  be  to 
lose  it.  "Exact  knowledge,  he  knew,  was  often  merely 
a  great  treachery,  and  fact,  a  dangerous  weapon  that 
deceived  and  might  even  destroy  its  owner." 

It  isn't  that  fact  may  never  be  used  in  great  imagi- 
native books,  in  such  a  book  as  Charles  Kingsley's 
IVater-Babies  for  example,  "A  fairy  tale  for  a 
Land-baby."  "There  are  land-babies"  he  remarks, 
"then  why  not  water-babies?"  This  book  begins 
quite  simply.  "Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  little 
chimney-sweep  and  his  name  was  Tom."  During  the 
development  of  Tom's  adventures,  there  is  much  talk 
of  animals,  of  the  English  country-side.  Names  are 
given  of  water-creatures  which  it  is  exciting  to  wonder 
about;  there  is  suggestive  description  of  river  or  sea; 
there  is  in  one  way  or  another  suggestive  use  of  words, 
so  that  children's  vocabularies  are  enriched,  they 
expand  under  the  influence  of  such  story-telling.  They 
do  not  miss  the  lessons  of  kindness  and  good  faith  and 
they  know  quite  well  what  Kingsley  means  when  he 
says  in  the  very  last  sentence,  "But  remember  always, 
as  I  told  you  at  first,  that  this  is  all  a  fairy-tale,  and 


L^^ 


only  fun  and  pretense;  and  therefore  you  are  not  to 
believe  a  word  of  it,  even  if  it  is  true." 

Another  book  which  children  will  listen  to  or  read 
tor  themselves  over  and  over  again  is  George  Mac- 
Donald's  At  the  Back  oj  the  North  IVind.  I  think 
they  love  the  sheer  power  ot  imagination  in  this 
book,  the  intensity  of  it,  the  personification,  the 
mystery,  the  beauty  of  descriptive  passages,  the 
poetic  quality  in  these.  It  is  interesting  to  observe 
different  children,  their  individual  reaction  to  such  an 
extended  imaginative  history.  They  are  divided  into 
two  distinct  classes:  the  children  who  concentrate 
attention  upon  the  great  North  Wind  and  the  others 
who  are  thinking  all  the  time  of  the  little  boy.  In 
some  books  there  is  too  much  mystery,  too  much 
suspense,  for  all  but  the  most  unusual  children,  those 
who  are  absolutely  fearless  about  imagining.  I  think 
Walter  de  la  Mare  had  written  such  a  book  in  The 
Three  MuUah-Midgars .  There  is  something  vital 
and  beautiful  about  it;  it  is  finely  written,  and  so  full 
of  stimulation  for  the  kind  of  child  who  can  follow  it 
at  all,  unafraid,  that  it  would  seem  a  great  pity  for 
such  a  child  to  miss  the  story.  The  Mullah-Mulgars 
were  monkeys  of  a  royal  line.  They  travel  through 
a  country  which  combines  jungle  and  snowy  wastes 
and  they  experience  strange  things,  too  strange  for  the 
more  timid  child.  I  understand  that  some  publisher 
is»  having  made  a  map  of  Fairyland.  No  doubt  this 
country  of  de  la  Mare's  will  be  indicated  thereon 
and  surely  we  shall  be  able  to  learn  from  it  something 
more  about  Peter  Pan  and  the  Never-Never  Land? 
It  would  not  be  possible  to  leave  J.  M.  Barrie  out  of 


tlie  list  ot  exquisitely  sensitive  and  creative  writers 
for  children.  Kensington  Gardens  interpreted  by 
Barrie  in  The  Little  White  Bird  for  example.  I 
shall  look  on  the  fairyland  map  for  that  separate 
country. 

Kenneth  Grahame's  Wind  in  the  Jf'illoivs  is  another  ' 
beautiful  book  of  exceptional  appeal  with  fascinating 
animals  who  do  things  as  people  do,  with  a  big  river 
flowing  through  its  pages,  with  a  revealing  chapter 
about  the  great  god  Pan,  who  is  not  dead  as  the  poet 
feared,  not  by  any  means.  Grahame  is  well-known  as 
the  author  of  Dream  Days  and  the  Golden  Age. 
These  books  are  too  subtle  for  very  young  children 
and  yet  I  think  there  is  a  pleasure  in  hearing  them 
read  aloud  which  even  the  little  ones  share.  I  believe 
they  enjoy  things  which  they  cannot  wholly  under- 
stand. They  are  not  literal  about  their  demands. 
I  heard  a  young  listener  confess  "I  did  not  know  what 
it  was  all  about,  only  a  little  here  and  there,  but  I 
liked  your  voice  running  along.'Y 

The  same  thing  might  be  said  of  these  books  that  is 
said  ot  a  most  alluring  book  by  W.  H.  Hudson,  called 
A  Litth'  Boy  Lost.  The  book-list  explains  that  ^ 
Hudson's  Little  Boy  Lost  will  be  enjoyed  by  the 
unusual  child  and  the  adult  of  literary  taste  who 
reads  it  aloud  to  the  children.  The  unusual  child 
however  is  not  the  grown-up  in  miniature,  but  a  small 
person  exhibiting  the  traits  found  in  all  children,  the 
difference  being  that  these  are  heightened,  emphasized, 
in  the  exceptional  child.  I  am  sure  most  children 
could  enjo)^  the  experiences  of  the  little  boy  W.  H. 
Hudson  is  writing  about,   his  wanderings  over  plains 


and  among  mountains  of  South  America  mingling 
with  animals  and  strange  people.  One  of  the  important 
things  about  this  book  is  the  distinguished  style  in 
which  it  is  written.  It  is  worth  trying  with  any  child- 
audience. 

Another  book  of  extraordinary  quality  is  Padraic 
Colum's  The  Kitig  of  Ireland's  Son,  fantastic  and 
surprising,  full  of  lovely  phrases,  full  of  delicate  humor. 
Colum,  by  the  way,  has  a  recent  book  relating  to  a 
subject  1  have  already  mentioned,  The  Adventures  of 
Odysseus  and  the  Tale  of  Troy.  He  has  also  written 
for  children  a  book  of  myths  called  The  Children  of 
Odin  based  on  the  ancient  northern  sagas  and  these 
books  are  finely  illustrated. 

-I  Whether  a  book  of  folk-tales  or  legends  or  a  book 
highly  imaginative  and  improbable  or  a  book  founded 
on  fact,  reality,  like  ihuse  marvellous  buuks  -et-febfe 
about  insectis,.  I  believe  that  you  may  consider  each 
one  in  the  romantic  light  of  adventure,  if  you  will  be 
patient,  if  you  will  experiment  with  children  and 
above  all,  if  yqu_wi^hTDt4H*FWLtlieiiijt.I  tried  four  times 
to  interest  my  own  children  in  Chaucer's  stories, 
particularly  in  the  Canterbury  Tales.  The  fifth  time, 
after  a  considerable  interval,  I  succeeded.  They  were 
not  ready  when  I  expected  them  to  be.  I  had  to  wait. 
One  never  knows.  I  should  have  thought  them  not 
ready  for  Don  Quixote,  even  as  the  story  is  re-told  for 
children,  nor  for  some  of  the  Shakespeare  plays,  not 
re-told  by  Lamb,  but  in  the  original.  Yet  they  sur- 
prised me  again.  They  liked  them  and  claimed  them 
right  away. 

I  have  been  taking  it  for  granted  that  many  ot  these 
14 


16L. 


books  will  be  read  aloud  to  children.  I  believe  it  is 
very  important  to  read  to  them,  but  the  children 
will  read  for  themselves  it"  the  books  are  there.  It 
is  better  not  to  depend  on  libraries,  generous  and 
resourceful  as  libraries  certainly  are,  librarians,  I 
should  say!  There  is  really  a  pleasure  in  owning 
books,  however,  and  it  is  tempting  to  have  them  about. 
I  have  known  children  to  be  reading  three  books  at 
a  time  carrying  on  happy  experience  through  Mrs. 
Burnett's  Secret  Garden,  and  reading  history  and 
Greek  Stories  too.  A  small  friend  of  mine  who  has 
twice  read  Mrs.  Ethel  Cook  Eliot's  The  Little  House 
i>ijt/ie  Fairy  IFood  began  it  the  third  time  and  said 
that  she  was  pretending  herself  into  the  story  and  was 
going  to  take  Orpheus  with  her  to  make  music  in  the 
wood  for  Ivra  and  the  fairies.  I  hope  that  Mrs. 
Eliot  will  not  object  to  having  Orpheus  get  into  her 
book. 

This  is  the  child  who  wanted  to  know  a  long  time 
ago  who  'Or-fer-us'  was  and  after  hearing  the 
story  about  him  she  said  "Well,  if  I  could  play  a  harp 
like  that,  so  well  that  I  saw  tigers  and  wolves  and 
lions  sitting  down  to  listen,  I'd  drop  the  harp  and  run. 
When  he  stopped  playing,  how  did  he  get  away?" 

Will  you  l£t  Orpheus  and  his  music  suggest  a  music 
of  words ?-W  Will  you  let  me  add  a  plea  for  poetry? 
Poetry  is  for  children,  quite  literally.  In  a  sense,*^ 
poetry  is  merely  the  capacity  for  wonder.  We  who 
are  grown,  love  poetry  in  proportion  to  the  vitality 
and  the  curiosity  which  we  have  kept  out  of  our 
childhood.  The  half-understanding  of  poems  read,  i 
is  often  a  source  of  the  pleasure  children  have  in 
15 


'J reading.  Words,  sounds,  may  be  full  of  witchery^ 
^  full  of  music,  without  being  wholly  understood.  And 
children  need  not  have  experienced  things  in  order  to 
feel  them  and  respond  emotionally.  It  is  child-like 
poets  who  rescue  the  art  from  the  world  of  sophistica- 
tion, j  Nothing  10  trivial  or  commonpla^ie— te-^such 
/  poets.  I  want  more  poetry  read  to  children,  but  it 
is  a  good  thing  to  have  them  try  to  read  it  themselves. 

'~NNot  grown-up  verse  about  children  r?^  That  can  hardly 
be  expected  to  interest  them.  They  have  more  alluring 
things  to  occupy  them.  Much  verse  described  as 
verse  for  children  is  merely  verse  and  nothing  more; 
some  of  it  is  doggerel,  y- There  is  no  magic  in  it.  But 
there  are  poems  to  be  found,  poems  of  all  periods, 
which  will  hold  them    and  which  they  will  remember'S- 

\_/T  think  obituary  poems  about  dead  birds,  kittens, 
puppies  or  even  dolls,  certainly  such  poems  concerning 
people  may  safely  be  omitted  from  our  list,  for  very 
young  children  at  any  rate.  Writers  of  verse  seem  to 
have  expected  them  to  read  of  death  with  surprising 

V  frequency.  I  think  blank  verse  can  hardly  be  appre- 
ciated by  children  until  they  are  fourteen  or  fifteen 
years  old,  though  there  again  I  am  uncertain,  having 
found  children  younger  than  that  enthusiastic  over 
parts  of  Shakespeare's  Tempest  and  Mid-Summer 
Night's  Bream  and  Twelfth  Night.  How  can  one 
generalize,  when  a  child  under  ten  chooses  Shelley's 
Sky  Lark  or  Ode  to  the  West  Wind  to  read  aloud, 
,^d  chooses  them  as  favorites? 
~'- Whatever  poetry  is  chosen,  let  there  be  magic  in  it, 
magic  of  line,  of  sound,  some  beauty,  some  strange- 
ness. I -have-been~asfced~-whatr-ptiets-  writing-  toda^y — 
i6 


..h    ^.l^ri!.!,^^:   :      .i-AJI-f! 


would  be  most  enjoyed  by  children.  The  name  of 
one  I  have  already  mentioned,  Walter  de  la  Marc 
Robert  Graves,  author  of  Fairies  and  Fusiliers  andt 
Country  Sentiment,  is  another.  William  H.  Davies 
is  another.  I  should  like  to  give  you  one  very  short 
poem  by  each  of  these.  From  de  la  Mare  I  am  choosing 
Old  Shellover,  another  piece  of  Peacock  Pie.  I  think 
Old  Shellover  may  be  a  Snail. 

'Come!'  said  Old  Shellover. 

'What.'"'   says  Creep. 

'The  horny  old  Gardener's  fast  asleep; 

The  fat  cock  thrush 

To  his  nest  has  gone, 

And  the  dew  shines  bright 

In  the  rising  Moon; 

Old  Salle  Worm  from  her  hole  doth  peep; 

'Come!'   said  Old  Shellover. 

'Ay!'   said  Creep. 

From  William  H.  Davies  I  am  taking  a  poem  pub- 
lished only  a  fortnight  ago,  called 

THE  OX 

Why  should  I  pause,  poor  beast,  to  praise 
Thy  back  so  red,  thy  sides  so  white, 

And  on  thy  brow  those  curls  in  which 
Thy  mournful  eyes  take  no  delight? 

For  if  I  call  thee  some  pet  name 

And  give  thee  of  my  care  today. 
Where  wilt  thou  be  tomorrow  morn 

When  I  turn  curious  eyes  thy  way  ? 
17 


■^■''^  ^      '•'■    ■■-■■  '     ■  v..  ■''■"■■■'"' V"  ^'--^^' 


Nay,  I'll  not  miss  what  I'll  not  find; 

And  I'll  find  no  fond  cares  for  thee; 
So  take  away  those  great  sad  eyes 

That  stare  across  the  fence  at  me. 

And  from  Robert  Graves  I  have  chosen  the  song 

I'D  LOVE  TO  BE  A  FAIRY'S  CHILD! 

Children  born  of  fairy  stock 
Never  need  for  shirt  or  frock, 
Never  want  for  food  or  fire. 
Always  get  their  heart's  desire: 
Jingle  pockets  full  of  gold: 
Marry  when  they're  seven  years  old. 
Every  fairy  child  may  keep 
Two  strong  ponies  and  ten  sheep: 
All  have  houses,  each  his  own, 
Built  of  brick  or  granite  stone; 
They  live  on  cherries,  they  run  wild — 
I'd  love  to  be  a  fairy's  child! 


,  . 

BOOKS   OF 

IMAGINATIVE    QUALITY 

Mentione 

d  by   Mrs.    Conkling 

Nearly  AH  These  Books  Are  Published  in  Several  Diferent  Editions 

William  Blake 

Songs  of  Innocence. 

Robert  Burns 

Poems. 

Merry  Adventures 

of  Ro 

bin  Hood. 

James  Baldwin 

Story  of  Siegfried. 

Mother  Goose. 

Edward  Lear 

Book  of  Nonsense. 

Lewis  Carroll 

Alice's  Adventures  in  Wonderland. 
Through  the  Looking  Glass. 
Hunting  of  the  Snark. 

Thackeray 

The  Rose  and  the  Ring. 

W.  S.  Gilbert 

Bab  Ballads. 

Walter  de  la  Mare 

Peacock  Pie. 
Songs  of  Childhood. 
Three  MuUah-Mulgars. 

Howard  Pyle 

King  Arthur  and  his  Knights. 

Sir  Thomas  Malory 

The  Romance  of  King  .'Arthur  and  his 
Knights    of   the    Round    Table,    a- 
bridged  from  Malory's  15th  Century 
Prose,    by   A.   W.   Pollard,   ill.    by 
Rackham. 

Tennyson 

Poems. 

Wm.  Morris 

Poems. 

Folk  Tales  of  all  Countries. 

SCUDDER 

Book  of  Fables  and  Folk  Stories. 

Carrick 

Picture  Tales  from  the  Russians. 

The  Bible. 

Jewish  Fairy  Tales 

William  Butler  Yeats 

Fairy  and  Folk  Tales.                      ' 

Andersen 

Fairy  Tales 

Andrew  Lang 

Fairy  Books. 

Homer 

Iliad,  trans,  by  Lang,  Leaf  &  Myers. 

Homer 

Odyssey,  trans,  by  Butcher  &  Lang. 
19 

'-  '■-'■■^™g.' 


Selma  Lagerlof 

Henri  Fabre 

Joanna  Spyri 

Mary  Mapes  Dodge 

Wyss 

Daniel  DeFoe 

RuDYARD  Kipling 


Mark  Twain 


Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

Algernon  Blackwood 
Charles  Kingsley 
George  MacDonald 
Sir  James  Barrie 

Kenneth  Grahame 


W.  H.  Hudson 
Padraic  Colum 


Cervantes 


Adventures  of  Nils. 

Further  Adventures  of  Nils. 

Social  Life  in  the  Insect  World. 

Insect  Adventures. 

Heidi,  etc. 

H.Tns  Brinker 

Swiss  Family  Robinson. 

Robinson  Crusoe. 

Just  So  Stories. 

Jungle  Books. 

Kim. 

Puck  of  Pook's  Hill. 

Grandfather's  Chair. 

Wonder  Books. 

Tanglewood  Tales 

Prince  and  the  Pauper. 

Yankees  in  King  Arthur's  Court. 

Adventures  of  Tom  Sawyer. 

Huckleberry  Finn. 

Treasure  Island. 

Kidnapped,  etc. 

Education  of  L'ncle  Paul. 

Water  Babies. 

At  the  Back  of  the  North  Wind. 

Peter  and  Wendy. 

Little  White  Bird. 

Wind  in  the  Willows. 

Dream  Days 

Golden  .'\ge. 

A  Little  Boy  Lost. 

The  King  of  Ireland's  Son. 

Adventures  of  Odysseus  and  the 

Tale  of  Troy,  ill.  Pogany. 

The  Children  of  Odin.   ill.  by  Pogany. 

Canterbury  Tales.    (Modern  Readers' 

Chaucer,  ed.  by  Tatlock  and  Mac- 

Kaye). 
Don  Quixote. 
20 


Shakespeare  Tempest,  Midsummer  Night's  Dream 

Twelfth  Night. 
Frances  Hodgson  Burnett  Secret  Garden. 
Ethel  Cook  Eliot  Little  House  in  the  Fairy  Wood. 

Shellev  The  Skylark.    (In  Poems). 

Ode  to  the  West  Wind.    (In  Poems). 
Robert  Graves  Fairies  and  Fusiliers. 

Wm.  H.  Davies  Poems. 

John  G.  Neihardt  The  Splendid  Wayfaring. 

James  Stephens  Irish  Fairy  Tales,  ill.  by  Rackham. 

John  Masefield  Book  of  Discoveries,  ill.  by  Rackham. 

Leo  Miller  The  Hidden  People. 

An   Ancient    Mappe    of    Fairyland    newly    discovered    and    set 
torth  by  Bernard  .Sleigh. 


*Odysseus  or  Peter  Rabbit  for  Your  Children? 
By- 
Grace  Hazard  Conkling 

Children  live  in  a  world  all  their  own,  and  from  this 
world  they  look  out  at  grown-ups,  wondering  about 
them.  The  world  of  grown-ups  is  their  despair;  but 
it  is  not  because  they  are  not  serious.  I  think  it  is 
Bret  Harte  who  says  that  "the  dominant  expression 
of  a  chiJd  is  gravity."  They  have  endless  adjustments 
to  make  and  investigations  to  carry  on.  Things 
change  like  chameleons  before  their  very  eyes.  Instead 
of  patronizing  them,  instead  of  regarding  their  make- 
believe  with  patient  indulgence,  we  should  be  trying 
to  get  back  into  their  world  again,  we  should  be  trying 
to  hear  their  thoughts.  One  of  the  ways  to  find  out 
what  they  think  about,  to  fathom  the  grave  wonder 
in  their  e>es,  is  to  tell  them  stories  and  to  get  their 
comments  afterward.  Another  way  is  to  share  with 
them  the  stories  told  by  others,  whether  in  prose  or 
verse;  I  mean,  to  read  them  books. 

But  when  it  comes  to  choosing  books  tor  children, 
people  often  make  the  mistake  of  underestmiating 
their  mentality.  Delightful  as  Peter  Rabbit  un- 
doubtedly is  to  them,  there  are  other  friends  for  little 
people.  Do  you  know  that  they  can  enjoy  the  wan- 
derings of  Odysseus  as  well  as  the  adventures  of  the 
rabbit?  They  will  listen  with  quiet  sympathy  to  long 
passages  from  Homer,  understanding  his  wealth  of 
detail,  for  they  like  their  stories  told  that  way.  For 
the  more  ranciful,  the  description  of  Mercury  crossing 


the  sky;  tor  the  more  matter-of-tact,  the  story  of 
Odysseus  at  his  boat-building;  Homer  knows  how  to 
talk  to  children. 

Or  there  is  Hawthorne's  Wonder  Book  to  tell  them 
tile  old  tales.  No  child  should  be  denied  the  joy  of 
these  nor  of  many  of  Chaucer's  stories  nor  of  Shakes- 
peare's. The  longer  one  thinks  of  it,  the  more  selfish 
it  seems  on  the  part  of  us  grown-ups  to  withhold  from 
children  any  beauty  they  can  appreciate. 

Not  that  we  should  tell  them  to  appreciate!  They 
do  not  need  to  be  told.  They  have  more  sensitiveness 
than  we  and  they  will  respond  quickly  enough  if  given 
opportunity.  Books  should  be  where  children  can 
find  them;  many  books,  good  books  we  want  them  to 
know,  but  which  must  appear  to  happen  into  the  world 
of  their  imagination,  quite  unannounced.  Such  happy 
accidents  are  never  forgotten.  I  know  a  little  boy 
who  speaks  of  the  day  he  met  the  man  who  wrote 
"The  Pied  Piper  of  Hamlin."  He  will  remember 
that  man. 


r 


More  books,  the  best  books  ot  all  time,  and  freedom 
f  choice  once  the  books  are  there!  Then  will  come 
the  delight  of  hearing  children  tell  about  their  dis- 
coveries, and  that  other  joy  of  discovering  the  children. 
For  their  imagination  carries  them  far  beyond  experi- 
ence, their  emotions  are  not  bounded  by  it.  As  they 
love  words  or  sounds  not  wholly  understood,  so  their 
dreams  outstrip  understanding.  They  can  interpret 
literature  for  us.      They  expect  literature.    / 


*A 


Kciv:paper  Clipping  ivhicb  appeared  during  C/ii/drcn's  Boot  IVeck. 


..^■■.V.H.lJl.y 


....  ...'.tr.AA;^^^,..^uiyiis.. 


'ECU  1985 


^J'iJ^^S^ 

1 

KIAY    19  1943 

APR   22  T946 

O'A  17  1i^ 

'    '    ''    ' 

i    ,    T     1951 

I*^'f2  0  1964 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNTA  LIBRARY 


